Subscribers of VoIP services sometimes choose telephone numbers outside of their geographical local calling area. Enhanced 911 (E911) services, however, require that the subscriber's telephone number and service address must be based in the same local calling area. For instance, subscribers must be assigned a phone number that is within the local calling area of subscriber's registered service address. When subscribers choose a phone number outside of their local calling area based on their service addresses, these subscribers are not eligible for E911 services. More importantly, the ineligibility of E911 services prevents subscribers with out of area phone number from receiving help using their subscribed VoIP services in an emergency situation.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for enabling a single local phone number for routing out of area phone numbers to a correct Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) in a packet network, e.g., a VoIP network.